‘Your mother was killed deliberately. The fact the head of the women’s charity was hit was a blind to throw the authorities. Your mother was the intended target and she was murdered because of a story she was working on. There are dark forces at work, Rebecca, but I know who was behind the attack and their motive. That’s what I was, in a roundabout way, trying to tell you.’

‘Who?’

‘Turn the engine off.’ Fairchild gestured at the key. Silva hesitated for a moment and then hit the kill switch and the engine died. ‘That’s better.’

‘Who?’

‘Sorry about earlier. I should have come clean instead of trying to approach the subject from a tangent. Let’s go inside.’ Fairchild turned to the house. ‘I’ll explain everything.’

‘No!’ Silva undid the chinstrap and removed her helmet. ‘Don’t play games. Who was behind the attack?’

Fairchild shrugged and nodded. He went across to the black Range Rover, opened the passenger door and retrieved a manila folder from the glovebox. He turned and walked back towards Silva, stopping a few paces away.

‘This person, Rebecca.’ Fairchild reached into the folder and pulled out a glossy photograph. He held it up. ‘She was directly responsible for the death of your mother.’

Silva looked at the picture. It showed a woman standing at a podium. Long brown hair and catwalk-model features. Eyes like blue neon. Behind her dozens of placards held aloft by adoring supporters. To the front, flags waved by an enthusiastic crowd, their emotions whipped into a frenzy. The placards bore a single word: Hope.

‘Karen Hope?’ Silva had seen the woman many times on the news, read the approving commentaries in the papers. ‘Is this some kind of sick joke?’

‘I wish it was.’ Fairchild pulled the picture back and looked at it himself. ‘You’re right about who she is though: US Congresswoman Karen Hope.’

‘And how is she in any way connected to my mother’s death?’

‘You mother was investigating the Hope family and trod on too many toes. Quite simply she got in the way of Karen Hope’s ambitions.’

‘Her ambitions?’

‘Hope is a virtual shoo-in for the Democratic nomination. With the way the opinion polls are heading she’s almost certainly going to be the next president of the United States of America.’

‘And she killed my mother?’

‘Correct.’

‘Bullshit,’ Silva said.

She nestled in behind a car transporter and rode along the motorway at a steady fifty-five, unable to trust herself to ride safely if she went any faster.